


how'd you feel when you found out?

by onetiredboy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brotherly Affection, Candy, Emotionally Repressed, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, No Incest, The Homestuck Epilogues, alternate candy route, dave needs dirks advice on his huge gay meltdown, davekat - Freeform, poor Dave, rosemary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-01 06:36:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18794941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onetiredboy/pseuds/onetiredboy
Summary: who'd you tell and how'd you face it? - are you in the mood bay factionSPOILERS FOR CANDY ROUTEwhat if dave had talked to dirk one last time before he died?a.k.a giving dave the emotional closure he deserved way earlier than he got it





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hewwo please enjoy my repressed dave strider fic. if you like it please follow me on twitter @d4v3k4t and let me know!! i made a playlist for repressed dave that u can find on there, and you can also yell at me about the epilogues ;0
> 
> the start of the fic leads off from actual candy content which i dont own and didnt write it diverges from DAVE: hey. 
> 
> also RIP the text wont do colours so i tried inserting images pls tell me if it doesnt work!!

Dave and Dirk don’t talk that much about the heavy stuff. They don’t need to. Dave can hear his brother’s voice in his head.

Not, like, literally. That would be insane. But Dave knows what his bro is like. Dirk, or a version of him, instilled in Dave a way of living and thinking that would, for better or worse, persist far beyond the first thirteen years of his upbringing. And even on Earth C, it’d be kind of tough to say the dude’s general overbearing demeanour wasn’t sufficient to perpetuate the conditioning. So it’s rare he has to guess what Dirk would say he should do.

But when it comes to the boondoggle involved with triangulating his interpersonal relationships with Jade and Karkat, Dave is shooting blanks. He has no idea what to do, no idea what to say, and for once, the ghost in his head doesn’t either.

Once he might have expected the end of the haunting to come as a relief. But now that he finally sits quietly in his own mind, with nothing but his meagre faculties to guide his hand, the silence is deafening.

There’s no time to waste, so he flies directly to his bro’s studio. He needs this. He needs his bro to tell him what to do. Whatever issues the guy might have, Dave has always been able to count on Dirk to give him, as Jake might say, the solid dick.

Dave knocks on the door, loud, but there’s no answer. Nothing when he calls out Dirk’s name either. Then he tries the knob, and the door swings right open.

Still no answer. Dave lets himself in. It’s not like his bro would actually mind. They’re family, after all.

Dave climbs the stairs up towards Dirk’s bedroom. With every step, a sinking feeling presses down over him. Somewhere in the basement, there is the sound of metal scraping. Dave practically leaps up the rest of the stairs, some deep-ground instinct having him reaching for a sword he doesn’t have. He hasn’t had to have a sword on him for a long time now.

Dave breathes out slowly and checks around the place for any cameras: anything that might have witnessed his little moment of weakness. Then he clears his throat and opens Dirk’s bedroom door.

Dirk’s bedroom is indistinguishable from the workshop downstairs. The sure sign of a person who has spent his whole life avoiding the chance to let himself develop a personality. Little bits of robots are strewed around the place, and in the corner of the room there is a plain bed with no blankets, and a familiar figure.

 

     

Despite himself, Dave feels a wave of relief. He had been feeling a little like something horrible was happening here, or that something horrible was meant to happen. Regardless, for some strange reason he’s beyond glad to see that his bro is alive.

 

Dirk gives him a look. Well. He tilts his sunglasses towards Dave in an exchange of the deeply specific form of facial communication they’ve both adjusted to, which Dave can easily interpret as Dirk giving him a _look_.

 

   

Dave goes silent, the reminder of the purpose of his visit today sneaking up on him and seizing him like the tender, too-intimate embrace of a family member you’re not too keen on at Christmas. Not that Dave ever had enough family to experience that sensation. To the outsider, his face remains perfectly still. But to the trained Strider-eye, he positively grimaces.

 

Dave looks around the room, nodding his head as if slowly processing everything Dirk has said.

 

 

Dave scoffs in protest of the very idea, except it comes out of him like a whimper and along with it comes a flood of tears that had been hiding under the sweet, sweet surface of denial. Dirk sighs and stands up from the bed. Calloused hands brush past Dave’s ears, and Dirk pulls his sunglasses off, placing them down on the workbench behind him.

 

****

Dave gives a weak, wet laugh, and Dirk leads him back over to his bed.

At this point, Dirk has to stop talking, because Dave’s sobs have grown so loud the chances are that he probably can’t even hear him anyway. Dave hides his face in Dirk’s shoulder, and Dirk tries not to be too visibly disgusted by the tears on his skin. Instead, he reaches an arm behind Dave and puts it awkwardly on his back. With his other hand he takes off his own sunglasses, to avoid the inevitable sharp-end-of-sunglasses-pokes-out-an-eye-and-totally-ruins-the-conversation-Dirk-has-been-waiting-to-have-with-Dave-for-seven-years conundrum. Then he waits for Dave to get a hold of himself.

Then he gets bored.

 

Dirk doesn’t flinch at Dave’s sadly predictable desperation for having parental influences in his life. He pats Dave on the head. Dave sits up properly and wipes his eyes with the back of his wrist. He glances over at Dirk and their eyes meet. Dirk smirks.

Dave can feel another wave of tears building up under him. As the silence grows between him and Dirk, something huge fills up the space the silence leaves. Dave can feel himself starting to panic.

 

Dave flings himself up from the bed and turns to face Dirk. His body is trembling all the way through. He puts his hands to his head and fists his hair, ignoring Dirk’s raised, placating hands trying to calm him.

 

The words bring him to an abrupt stop. They’d been crawling around in the back of his mind for years, hiding behind the corner when he went out on dates with Jade, working their way up his throat since he got here, and yet somehow this whole time he’d ignored that they were even there.

Dave stands in this frozen state, his eyes wide, his chest raising and falling like a creature of prey cornered by some life-threatening beast, except this beast is made up of roughly 20 years of repressed sexuality questioning. Dirk sighs softly again.

 

Dave isn’t listening to him. Dirk stands up and puts his hands on his shoulders.

 

And then Dave is alone in the room. He folds his arms, hugging them close to his body, and stares at a vague point on the wall. His eyebrows furrow together, and more silent sobs shake his frame.

Every time he closes his eyes, he sees Karkat.

After a moment, Dirk returns with a mug of hot something and places it down near Dave’s sunglasses. Dave’s not even a hot-drink person, but he knows Dirk well enough to figure that Dirk probably thinks the temperature will help calm him.

 

Dave really does not want to consider anything to do with Gamzee or Jane at the moment. He closes his eyes and leans back on the workbench.

 

Dave takes a deep breath and opens his eyes again. Dirk is running his hand through his hair. The muscles in his arms ripple. God, out of all the genes Dave could have inherited he got the emotional constipation instead of the frankly intimidating muscle definition.

It’s silent for a while between them, and then Dave chews his lip.

****

Dirk’s eyebrows raise marginally in one of the most expressive gestures Dave has ever seen grace his features. It’s the one question he probably hasn’t prepared for: a rare moment of being caught off-guard.

 

The thought makes Dave flinch. He turns to pick up his cup of tea, if only to get Dirk’s eyes off of him.

 

Dave turns back to him and glares.

 

Dirk takes a step to face Dave more properly. Dave cuts himself off, dropping his eyes to the ground. All these years, and sometimes Dirk can still see that he’s half waiting for him to attack him.

 

Dirk considers him for a moment. Then he walks over and sits down on his bed, facing Dave. He nods slowly.

Silence falls thickly between them again. Dirk scratches at some half-flaked nail polish on his thumbnail and then looks back up at Dave.

 

Dave looks up at him.

 

      

Dave turns his head and looks out the window. His shoulders begin to hunch up, like he’s fighting tears again.

****

 

Dave sucks in a breath and looks back at Dirk.

      

 

Dave looks away again.

 

It’s silent for a moment. Dave pushes off the workbench and sits down on the bed next to Dirk.

 

       

Dave turns his head away.

 

      

Dirk sees Dave’s shoulders tense.

 

 

Dave lets out a shaking breath and turns back to Dirk. They lock eyes for a moment, a piercing orange on a stunning red, until the heat of the orange-red flames they create starts to burn, and Dave looks back down at his knees and nods.

 

Dave stands up from the bed suddenly, nodding furiously. He turns to Dirk.

 

Dave sticks his tongue out in feigned disgust and makes for the door. Just as his hand closes around the doorknob Dirk clears his throat. When Dave turns around, it takes him a moment to realise what’s changed, but then Dirk lifts one finger to tap the side of the stupid anime sunglasses he’s just put back on.

 

Dave walks back over to the work bench and picks up his sunglasses, sliding them back over his face. The world returns to its usual shade of cool.

 

He turns to go again, but Dirk suddenly stands up from his bed.

 

Dave turns back around.

 

Dirk shrugs in a non-committal kind of way, and Dave frowns at him from behind his sunglasses. Dirk doesn’t say anything more, though, so Dave turns again and finally leaves the room

As the door closes behind him, Dirk walks over to the workbench Dave had been leaning against just moments before. He opens a drawer on the underside. Inside it are two things: a rope, and a small folded note.

Dirk sighs. Time to take care of business.

\--> Ascend


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> gamzee is a huge bitch bluh bluh i added in another chapter in this thing just for how great gamzee and daves interactions are

Dave starts down the stairs towards the front door. Dirk told him a lot of things he’d already been thinking, things John had probably been trying to say, but something about hearing it from Dirk makes it sink in so much more. And while he may not have it all figured out yet, he feels firmly resolved that he knows what he has to do next.

Dave is so caught up in his introspection, half mumbling broken off thoughts out loud to himself, that he doesn’t see the huge hulking figure lurking on the stairs until he runs straight into it.

****  


He steps around Gamzee’s imposing figure, but suddenly he’s pulled back by some invisible force. Dave pushes forward and hears a tearing sound. He stops struggling.

 

Dave turns around slowly. Little bits of red fabric are caught in Gamzee’s grotesque nails, which seem to be carrying about a month’s worth of dead skin cells and what looks like – congealed milk? – beneath them. Dave unclasps his cape around his neck and lets it fall to the stairs. He has another one at home, anyway. He doesn’t want the one that’s been fondled by a clown that, by all rights, should be rotting right now.

 

Dave stares at Gamzee for a long, long time. Gamzee stares back, or rather, he seems to stare right through him. He reaches a grossly long finger down and scratches at his codpiece. The longer they stay like this, the angrier Dave gets.

 

As he talks, Gamzee’s gaze goes slowly from through him to on him. By the time Dave wraps up, Gamzee has pulled his lips into a wide lazy grin. He leans forward and puts a surprisingly heavy hand on Dave’s shoulder, almost crushing the bone.

 

Gamzee gives him a slow wink. Dave stumbles backwards to get out of his grip and steps on his cape. For a moment he’s free-wheeling, and then Gamzee’s strong hand snaps around his skinny arm, pulling Dave back to his feet.

 

Dave has to give a moment to pause and reflect on how sadly perfect it would’ve been if he had died in that moment, having warned himself about this very circumstance years prior. Then he shakes the thought off.

Fuck Gamzee. Dave really does not want to spend a second longer having the smell of this sweaty bonebulge excrement stain forced up his nose, but…

Gamzee looks back at Dave, a hint of that lazy smile passing over his features again.

 

Another lazy wink. Dave refuses to feel hopeful based off something a milk-swollen clown has told him, so he turns and walks down the stairs, a trail of faint honks drifting on the air behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here it IS the BIG FINALE 
> 
> remember if you enjoy this work to leave kudos!! and if you wanna chat more hmu on twitter under @d4v3k4t!!

There is an exponential relationship between the distance closed between Dave and the hive he shares with Karkat and the speed that Dave’s heart is pumping. While he has been flying, his mind has been busy coming up with every single scenario possible involved with his confession to Karkat. Examples vary from:

 

To:

 

To Dave’s brain’s personal favourite:

 

When Dave sees their hive over the horizon, he falters in midair for a moment, almost forgetting to believe in flying enough to stay in the air.

 

Dave takes a deep breath and starts back towards the hive again.

 

It only takes a few more minutes of half-mumbled affirmations before Dave makes it back to their place. He alights in the back lawnring—fuck, he means garden—and steps cautiously towards the door.

Dave slips inside as softly as he can. There’s a 50% chance Karkat is curled up on the couch taking a nap, a 50% chance he’s 3 hours deep into a secret binge viewing of Jake’s choice ass on reruns of his stupid slash-fic-turned-marital-arts sitcom, and a 100% chance he doesn’t want Dave to blast the door wide open and let the sun stream in.

Wow. His heart is pounding in his chest. There’s a part of him that is telling him to spin right around on his heels and walk back out, maybe go fly to a nice hill a few miles from here and throw up into a river just to get all this anxiety out of his system.

He stands stock still in the kitchen for a moment. He closes his eyes. Fine. If this goes wrong, let another Dave from 10 minutes from now appear right in front of him and warn him against it.

Dave opens his eyes. There’s no second Dave in front of him. Of course there isn’t. Even if it had gone wrong, Earth C was meant to be Dave’s escape from dealing with hundreds of doomed timeline versions of himself. He knows he won’t go back in time regardless of the outcome. There’s only one way to find out. He’s going to have to do this himself.

Dave walks out of the kitchen and into the main living room.

Dave steps cautiously towards the little office room they have annexed off from the main living room, their haunt for PC gaming, even though the only PC game available on Earth C is the Ghostbusters MMO and the only other players are a few capricians and some keyboard-slamming salamanders, so getting anywhere is almost impossible.

 

Dave sneaks up behind Karkat, who is throwing a tantrum so hard he looks like he’s about to tip out of his chair backwards and send their whole PC gaming rig flying. Dave slides his arms around Karkat’s neck from behind and talks into his ear.

****  


Karkat sighs and takes his headset off his head, leaning forward to put it down and turn the PC off. Dave grabs the back of the chair and spins it around so that Karkat is facing him.

 

Karkat stands up from the chair and they both walk out to the main living room. There’s already a mess of blankets on the couch from their last all-night binge watch of movies, and they nestle in to their respective spots easily. Dave picks up a bra from where he had been about to sit down and flings it across the room.

 

Karkat looks at him sideways.

 

Nice one, Strider.

 

Karkat puts down his controller and turns towards Dave. His caterpillar eyebrows are pulled down, but his eyes are bright and intense on Dave. His hair is messy, but looks somehow soft. Like it would be incredible to run your fingers through. Dave swallows over the lump in his throat.

There’s an awkward silence between them. Dave’s mind is stuck back a few seconds ago to Karkat’s ‘I’ve got to let go’. Dave takes a deep breath in.

 

It’s quiet again. Karkat is just staring at Dave. Dave feels a wave of nervous nausea.

 

Dave stares at him, silent. Karkat stares back for a moment, and then his pupils begin to dart around a little, trying to find where Dave’s irises are under his shades. Dave sighs.

 

Suddenly Dave’s heart is in his throat. He feels his whole body reverberate with the rapid beating. This is it: this is his big moment.

 

Shit. Karkat keeps staring at him for a moment, and then shrugs and turns back to the video game. Dave kicks himself inside his head. He can almost hear Dirk screaming at him from his workshop.

For the next hour or so Karkat and Dave play Troll Tony Hawk’s Skate Jam under a thick blanket of unresolved tension. The whole time, Dave’s mind is playing this game of: just get one inch closer to karkat, dude. just lean over and kiss him, dude. you can do this, strider. He is also highly aware that with every second that passes, the chance of Jade coming back home and spoiling their moment with her doggy drama gets a little more likely. Its only after the fourth round of skating when Dave’s score comes back as under 69,000 that he sighs and pauses the game. He can’t focus.

 

Dave sees Karkat look at him out of the corner of his eye, but he looks away again less than a millisecond later.

Karkat trails off. He makes eye contact with Dave’s shades and gets stuck there, staring.

 

Karkat stares up at Dave quickly, almost too expectantly, like he’s been waiting all this time for Dave to say exactly his name in exactly that tone of voice. It almost freezes Dave in place.

 

Dave reaches up and pulls his sunglasses from his face. Karkat’s eyes widen to the point of bursting out of his head. Dave pauses for a long moment.

 

Dave raises a hand. He can feel a slight tremble but his fingers aren’t visibly shaking. He reaches out and places his hand on Karkat’s cheek. Karkat stares at him for a moment. His closely-knit eyebrows relax all of a sudden, softening his whole face. Karkat’s hand cups over Dave’s, and he guides him to be cupping the side of his neck.

 


	4. EPILOGUE C EPILOGUE 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok fine i couldnt help myself heres the epilogue to the epilogue

It’s not too often that everybody gets to meet up on Earth C, especially not the four kids from Earth A. John is in his house far too much, Rose and Kanaya are busy with their control over the future of the entire troll species or whatever other excuse they have, and Dave is usually too busy hiding from all his friends to be seen outside.

But, as is usually the case, the death of a close acquaintance has brought them all together.

They’re sitting around on a small picnic blanket in a park close to Rose and Kanaya’s hive, basking in the wake of Dirk’s funeral. The sun has just set, but its faint glow, as well as a streetlight overhead (and Kanaya, who is literally glowing) are keeping their little party well lit. Rose and Kanaya are sitting either side of a small picnic basket, which John, on the other side of the blanket, is eyeing warily. When he first saw it he almost flipped his shit, going off about choices and canon and bluh bluh, but Rose seemed to be able to calm him down. Dave hadn’t thought John was that close to Dirk, but something about his death must have really shaken him up. Dave doesn’t really know where Jade is. He hasn’t seen her since she found out about him and Karkat, and to be honest, he’s kind of been ignoring her.

Speaking of Karkat, Dave is pulled out of his thoughts by a warm hand on the side of his face, and he’s pulled around to be eye-to-eye with Karkat’s bright yellow eyes.

Dave is fairly sure at least Rose can hear Karkat’s whisper, if not the whole group, so he smiles and peels Karkat’s hand off of his face, instead twisting their fingers together.

****

Karkat gives him a look that says, ‘you and I both know you’re not, Strider’, so Dave looks away over at Rose and Kanaya. She is watching him, although her eyes dart away the second he looks up. She and Kanaya share a _look_.

Karkat almost makes a perfect acrobatic fucking pirouette off of Dave’s side, scooting at least a foot away on the blanket. Dave glances down at a string on the picnic blanket and pushes his glasses further up his nose.

Dave can’t help himself but to laugh, falling into a very un-characteristically soft grin. He looks over at Karkat, whose light grey skin is almost completely red, his mouth open in a horrified ‘O’.

****

Karkat whips around to look at Dave.

He gets impossibly even redder. Dave laughs again and leans over towards him.

****

Dave wraps his arms around Karkat’s middle. Karkat writhes, though all of his wild limbs pointedly miss doing any real damage. Dave puts one arm on the picnic blanket on the other side of Karkat to keep himself upright. He pulls his sunglasses off with his other hand, leaning in to pull Karkat into a kiss.

****

Karkat goes still. Then he lifts a tentative hand and it cups the side of Dave’s face. Dave smirks into the kiss and breaks away. Karkat stares at him, breathless. Then Dave pulls away entirely and sits back on his arms on the blanket beside Karkat.

John is gaping at him so wide its like Dave just pulled Nic Cage out of his ass. Kanaya is slightly less obviously wide eyed, but she shares another glance with Rose, who smiles softly and takes a sip of the sparkling water in her wine glass.

****

Dave feels himself burn up. Beside him, Karkat wails and throws his head in his hands.

Dave rushes to put his sunglasses back on, hiding his irises.

Another Rose-Kanaya-Dave-Psychoanalysis glance. They both smile this time.

  

Dave glances over to Karkat, who looks over at him. They make eye contact for a moment, and then Dave smiles.

****


End file.
